In our ongoing series of Saturday posts on church planting, this week's article comes from Chris Edwards, who talked about the experience of planting churches in the Adelaide Hills 2002.

We need more churches

If there's one thing we have discovered at Trinity it is this: there is no better method for building the church than by preaching the gospel. That's why we need more churches: because preaching the gospel of Christ will always lead to the building of his church.

Trinity is South Australia's oldest church. A Trust Deed that predates the State allows us to own property. I am no expert in Anglican property ownership, but I am aware that we are in an unusual situation. That Trinity can own its own property is unusual enough, but back in 1836 it was absolutely vital. After all, there was no Diocese. In fact when the Deed was written there were no other churches, no other clergy and no other parishes.

By retaining the Deed we continue to find ourselves in ‘unusual situations’ at a number of points. But property ownership is not at our heart. We desire to respond to God's grace by embracing Christ's program for the world. We want to build the church.

Historically Trinity has found the most effective way to build has been by commencing new congregations. Back in the early days of the State this was done on horseback as the preacher from Trinity rode to various locations around the new colony. Following the Billy Graham Crusades of 1959 a real surge in church attendance took place in Adelaide. A congregation of people from Trinity was planted in the suburban Parish of Kidman Park. More recently we have planted congregations at our city site. We didn't wait until all the existing congregations were full. We gathered people who were keen to see the church built and we asked them to form the nucleus of a new congregation, firstly at 11am and then, a few years later, another at 5pm.

A team approach

We developed teams of people who would be available to serve these new communities as welcomers, musicians, Bible group teachers, crèche carers and pastoral workers. This team approach has proven to be very effective for us.

Bringing people onto our site five times on a Sunday really stretches resources and facilities. Although the National Trust is excited by the old-fashioned building materials in our structures, we are not so thrilled by them. They really need a lot of maintenance. And we are right in the middle of the city, so parking is a constant problem.

Even before we commenced the new congregations on our existing site, we recognized that if we were to continue to build churches we would need to think about locating ourselves elsewhere.

We once again began the task of seeking out people who would be willing to form the nucleus of a new congregation.

We have always worked hard at keeping a good database of names and addresses of the people who come to Trinity. And we never delete a name! This proved really valuable when we started trying to work out where a new congregation could be planted. We were able to work out where our regular people were living, where visitors came from and where we had contact details without people becoming regulars. They would automatically find their way onto an invitation list.

The Adelaide Hills stood out as a place where there were a good number of contacts, as well as a number of potential core team members. We started inviting them home for meals and prayer days to dream together and to share tasks as we gathered information on the local area.

One thing we needed was a building to gather in. And we had a few requirements to satisfy. It needed to be near one of the main centres, family friendly with good toilets and plenty of seating. God graciously provided us with a community hall that has a kitchen, basement, storage space for all our equipment and easy access to a kindergarten. It also boasts new toilets! The hall is used three nights a week as a cinema and the (padded) cinema seats have to be left out every week. In other words, we don't even need to set up the hall. The seats are there ready for us each week, as is a huge screen for our PowerPoint presentations.

Once the team was starting to get a vision for what could be done, people became very generous. Gifts of money were received and we were able to purchase a number of items to help Sundays run well. But people also donated equipment: a photocopier, a data projector, even interest-free loans so we could build a house/ministry centre.

We have been able to hold all sorts of events. We have run clubs for kids in the local school, built gingerbread houses for Christmas and played rounds of golf with local blokes. We have had café nights and craft days. We have started home fellowship groups and prayer triplets. We have arranged youth and children's programs and set up a group of men to tackle home maintenance for those who can't.

We don't really do anything too radical. What we do is we preach the gospel. In fact, at all these events and programs there is one rule: the gospel must always be preached.

Read the full article online.

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